Saturday’s local elections were a setback for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but it does not necessarily mean that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would be victorious in the 2024 presidential election.
In the 2018 local elections, the KMT also claimed victory, but the DPP triumphed in 2020.
The KMT has two major problems. First, it is like a tree with a weak trunk and strong branches.
The KMT mayoral and county commissioner candidates have won due to their personal qualities, rather than the party’s support.
If KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) or Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) try to reap the benefits of KMT individuals’ success, the “strong branches” could push back.
If New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) or Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) run for president, the Han Kuo-yu farce would likely be repeated.
Second, the KMT is facing a major threat from the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
Although the TPP cannot stand on its own, its influence has been growing due to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) support.
The TPP and Gou would affect the KMT’s plan, and Gou is unlikely to work with the KMT again, after how he was treated in the KMT’s most recent internal elections.
Despite its terrible showing in the local elections, the DPP is still the governing party. It is therefore imperative that the it initiates reforms and prepares for the presidential election.
Chen Wen-ching is an executive director of the Formosa Association of Resource Recycling.
Translated by Liu Yi-hung
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS